How Does One 8800 Compare to 7950 SLI?

[DasFox]

I have two 7950s GT KO 512MB cards in SLI, but they don't seem to run that good, in fact I've fiddle farted with SLI for the past year, and I'm not impressed with it's support, it really sucks.

So I'm just about ready after one year of messing to just ditch SLI and get either a 800GTX, or 8800GTS.

How would a single one of these cards compare to the performance of two 7950 GT KO 512MB cards running SLI?

THANKS & ALOHA

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

I would expect better performance. An added bonus is that you don't have to deal with games that don't do well with SLI. COH unpatched comes to mind.

 

[moosey]

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=516&model2=606&chart=196

 

[Dainas]

Better, but In most games it means jack in performance diff...

However in super resource-sucking-nex-gen games, (like say Oblivion) It means the difference of being able to use Anti-Aliasing(even if G70 could do HDR+AA, it would not have the horsepower to run it SLI or not) and having you minimum FPS stay over 20. The reason Oblivion is soo important, it is a preview of the exorbitant shader requirements that all big name games will have in the recent future.

Seriously, within a year I would not be surprised if across the board performance of a single 8800GTX over 7900GTX sli being well over 30% in all recent games.

Originally posted by: moosey
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=516&model2=606&chart=196

try http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=516&model2=606&chart=199

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: Dainas
Better, but In most games it means jack in performance diff...

However in super resource-sucking-nex-gen games, (like say Oblivion) It means the difference of being able to use Anti-Aliasing(even if G70 could do HDR+AA, it would not have the horsepower to run it SLI or not) and having you minimum FPS stay over 20. The reason Oblivion is soo important, it is a preview of the exorbitant shader requirements that all big name games will have in the recent future.

Seriously, within a year I would not be surprised if across the board performance of a single 8800GTX over 7900GTX sli being well over 30% in all recent games.

Originally posted by: moosey
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=516&model2=606&chart=196

try http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics....elx=33&model1=516&model2=606&chart=199

Toms?? (i hate them)

Yea. I went from 7900GT's in SLI (vmodded to run at GTX speeds) to an 8800GTS.

I consider it more of a lateral then a upgrade but the 8800 card(s) really show their strength in shader heavy games like DMOMM and other Source based games.

And in Oblivion HDR+AA is REALLY nice.

And I get the same performance in a lot of games.
Thing is, instead of running them with 4xAA/8x or 16xAF I now run them at 16xAA, 16xAF (HQ which is REALLY nice on the G80) TRSS, higher ingame settings, etc..
Get the point?
I'd do it.
Plus as I always say:
Single more powerful GPU>* (SLI, Crossfire, etc..)

Edit:
I went from 7900GT's in SLI to 8800GTS and I NEVER looked back

 

[DasFox]

wizboy11 what you saying? ---> Single more powerful GPU>* (SLI, Crossfire, etc..)

You are running a single 8800GTS now over SLI?

THANKS

 

[Gstanfor]

Oblivion + SLI AA 16x + software HDR mod looks great and performs great as well on G7x SLI...

 

[josh6079]

Oblivion + SLI AA 16x...performs great as well on G7x SLI...

Can we see some numbers?

 

[Gstanfor]

It's probably not as fast as a single 8800GTS, but SLI AA speeds the game up massively compared to normal SLI or running single card mode.

 

[TheRyuu]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
It's probably not as fast as a single 8800GTS, but SLI AA speeds the game up massively compared to normal SLI or running single card mode.

wtf...
No.
I tried SLIAA once in CS:S, totally wasn't worth it. Slideshow in dust2.

Don't know what your smoking. And wtf is this "software hdr"?

Originally posted by: DasFox
wizboy11 what you saying? ---> Single more powerful GPU>* (SLI, Crossfire, etc..)

You are running a single 8800GTS now over SLI?

THANKS

Yea.
I got the 8800GTS and got rid of my 7900GT's in SLI.
I'll never look back too. I LOVE the 8800GTS.

If you got the $$$ then go for it (an overclocked 8800GTS comes close to stock 8800GTX speeds)
Better IQ, HDR+AA, better shader performance, etc..
The list goes on.

 

[1Dark1Sharigan1]

Originally posted by: wizboy11
And wtf is this "software hdr"?

It's this fake HDR mod some people made that basically mimicks HDR with Shader 2.0 so that even people with Shader 2.0 cards can have an "HDR" experience. Sorta like Source I guess, in that HDR is done through shaders. I found that the performance with it was pretty bad and that just running the regular HDR netted better performance. The only thing that made it interesting was the fact that it has tone-mapping whereas the regular HDR in Oblivion doesn't seem to support tone-mapping. I still prefer the real HDR though.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
It's probably not as fast as a single 8800GTS, but SLI AA speeds the game up massively compared to normal SLI or running single card mode.

How does Anti-Aliasing speed a game up?

 

[Gstanfor]

The fake HDR mod can be turned on and off in game (numpad +) at any time, and has no noticeable effect on performance that I can see no matter what settings you use.

The effect can be editted so the HDR effect is to your own liking also.

 

[josh6079]

It's probably not as fast as a single 8800GTS, but SLI AA speeds the game up massively compared to normal SLI or running single card mode.

I could see SLI AA "speeding up the game" if you went from using 4xAA on a single card to 4xAA with two. However, this isn't what you claimed. You said:

Oblivion + SLI AA 16x...performs great...

SLI AA 16x is anything but a great performing feature to use on Oblivion. Performance would be horrendous.

Again, can we see some numbers?

 

[Gstanfor]

There is no such thing as SLI AA 4x Josh. You get to choose 8x or 16x. I get a pretty solid 22fp outdoors (which is pretty good considering the mods and graphics settings the wife runs the game at). This is @ 1600x1200

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
There is no such thing as SLI AA 4x Josh. You get to choose 8x or 16x. I get a pretty solid 22fp outdoors (which is pretty good considering the mods and graphics settings the wife runs the game at). This is @ 1600x1200

I think Josh was just using the number 4 as an example.

 

[BFG10K]

16xSLI AA has the same performance hit as 8xS on a single card, maybe a bit more due to SLI overhead.

Oblivion + 16xSLI AA numbers here.

 

[josh6079]

There is no such thing as SLI AA 4x Josh.

And? Same principle. SLI AA does "speed up the game" by distributing the AA work-load between two GPU's instead of one. However the work-load that you're describing would be so great that it would do the opposite of "perform well".

16xSLI AA has the same performance hit as 8xS on a single card, maybe a bit more due to SLI overhead.

Oblivion + 16xSLIAA numbers here

LOL!!

Xbit
Nvidia?s 16xs FSAA is inferior performer in modern games. It cannot be used anywhere due to dramatic performance drop.

 

[DasFox]

I'm just a step closer to dumping the 7950 GT KO 512MB cards in SLI and get Evga to give me either a 8800GTX or 8800GTS, BUT there hasn't been any weird issues going on with these cards?

Both of them have been going so far?

ALOHA

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: 1Dark1Sharigan1

Originally posted by: wizboy11
And wtf is this "software hdr"?

It's this fake HDR mod some people made that basically mimicks HDR with Shader 2.0 so that even people with Shader 2.0 cards can have an "HDR" experience. Sorta like Source I guess, in that HDR is done through shaders. I found that the performance with it was pretty bad and that just running the regular HDR netted better performance. The only thing that made it interesting was the fact that it has tone-mapping whereas the regular HDR in Oblivion doesn't seem to support tone-mapping. I still prefer the real HDR though.

The HDR used in Source Engine is True HDR as stated by Microsoft SM 2.0, is hardware based because it uses Pixel Shaders and Floating Point Textures in hardware to recreate it. The HDR used in most games todays is based on the Open EX standard which uses Floating Point Blending. Both would incurr in a performance hit depending of your hardware, the HDR found in Half Life since uses more Pixel Shaders and Floating Point Textures, require plenty of Pixel Shader power and a lot of Frame Buffer, and the Open EX HDR requires even more Frame Buffer and is Bandwidth Hungry. Both are good methods, but the current line ups of graphics are performance optimized for the Open EX standard, hence the better performance.

 

[evolucion8]

Where I can find the Fake HDR mod for oblivion?